


Drowned

by ArcticLucie



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Don't Examine This Too Closely, Extended Metaphors, How Do I Tag, I Don't Even Know, Love, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, POV Daryl, POV Second Person, Thunderstorms, poetic?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 13:52:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4022305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcticLucie/pseuds/ArcticLucie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I don't know what this is other than an experiment in second person, formatting, and "the overuse of metaphor."</p><p>
  <i>He's your shelter just as much as he's your raging storm,</i>
  <br/>
  <i>but you're his lifeboat in a tumultuous sea.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>And you think that maybe you've always been when he holds to you like he's drowned...</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drowned

**Author's Note:**

> Title and quote from "Drowned" by Tim Minchin.
> 
> I wrote this in paragraphs and am not sure how I feel about the way I formatted it. Just thought I'd go with it after noticing the gratuitous overuse of commas. It's not intended to be poetry, even though I suppose it could be considered a bit poetic. And maybe there's a few rhymes. Enjoy!

He moves towards you like the thunderheads rolling in,

all consuming as they swallow the horizon,

a living painting of grays jostling and spiraling as they spin cartwheels on the skyline,

the smell of petrichor kicked up on the wind.

Except it's not the Earthy musk that invades your nose,

nor the smell of ozone from the splitting of atoms when slivers of lightening reach down from the heavens.

 

It's the smell of man and sweat and years of walking among the dead,

the soil that clings to his clothing after plowing fertile fields left behind to sow something else entirely,

the streaks of dirt your nails deposit along the curve of a knotted spine that carries the weight of so many lives,

and has for far too long.

Saliva from kisses and teeth and makeshift lubricant,

of sex, of bodies bending, of muscles flexing and tendons tending.

 

It's his heady scent trundling down around yours,

the aroma of home,

and you want nothing more than to bottle it up and string it around your neck on a cord of leather,

always with you. But he already is,

permeating your skin like a tattoo,

your body never coming clean of him as he nests just below the surface.

Permanent.

 

The smell may be what tips you off,

but the pressure change hits first,

the welcomed atmospheric disturbance as the system pushes in.

It's in that look he sends your way,

the simplest brush of fingers over a well-toned forearm,

the way he stretches just right so his shirt rides up to reveal that light dusting of hair on perfectly pale skin,

tempting you like keys in the ignition of a fucking Porsche.

 

You know it's been building for an age,

slow and steady like mountains,

waiting for the right moment to release the built up tension that is so good at creeping in,

a fog that goes unnoticed until it's blinding on all sides,

walls of white entombing you,

cocooned.

It's just the nature of the beast,

leaving no route for escape.

 

All the seeds of things yet to come to pass hover overhead like the clouds so heavy,

desperate to hold together,

holding in their burdens.

They are seeds of a future uncertain,

because you're painfully aware of how easily it can all be burnt to ash,

or made to crumble into the rubble when the next shitstorm makes land.

 

And a storm is brewing alright,

tenacious and untamable,

but it's one you've learned quite well to weather,

to navigate through the harshest swell,

through eyes as blue as blue could ever be.

And they burn into you like a brand,

marking your soul as his,

but you know it always was.

 

There's relief in the burn,

in the way he cuts into you so deep and clean,

like a surgeon's scalpel,

sharpened and wielded expertly with hands that know just where to go,

just where you need them to be cast.

Because he is you,

joined and melded,

alloy,

stronger together than you could ever be apart.

And you know separate will never be an option either of you could choose.

 

But that doesn't make it easier.

To let go and let the rain take over,

to purify you of the past that leaves you crying out into the night,

haunted by demons that you cannot run from once sleep hauls you under.

But the horrors are lessened when he's beside you, you've found.

When fingers carve canyons in the oil slick atop your head,

tangled by terrors sent to taunt,

as he wakes you before you wake the baby.

 

Or the way those fingers smoother the cries he wrenches from your lungs himself before you wake the cell block.

 

There is a predictably in the unpredictable,

of the raw power released in a crackle of lightening,

of the crack of his hips as you wither on the vine,

muted whimpers begging for your thirst to be quenched through parched lips.

And it will be,

but the lightening can be seen in the distance long before the skies have a chance to darken above,

the thunder rumbling in,

vibrating the hairs on sweat-stained skin before it plays its beat on drums.

 

But there's always a chance the storm will miss,

go wide and leave you damp but not soaked through,

still craving the almighty flood.

It's in a call to arms against more threats than the old world could imagine,

the fever of a child cutting teeth,

or maybe just weary bones worn out from a life without rest,

without respite,

without repose.

 

But there's a greater chance that it'll hit dead center,

and he'll be there to hold you up only to drag you under,

the first droplets of rain getting caught up in Earth's pull,

falling from their source to give life to so much like he gives to so many.

To you.

And you know you've given him just as much.

You've given him everything.

He tells you without words,

in a kiss,

because words could never do justice to the breadth of your hearts when it comes to each other.

 

Men of action, you are.

Words are hollow, meaningless,

lies and half truths,

but your bow does not fabricate and his gun does not deceive.

His hands on your cheeks tell a story just the same,

one you can believe in.

His lips on your neck are the only thing you trust,

the way he crawls under your skin and into your marrow,

fluid like the currents of the ocean,

quicksilver,

like light slicing through the darkest of night,

the only true thing you've ever known.

 

And he's controlled chaos when the clouds finally break,

when he moves into you like a second skin,

rain pelting down with every delicate caress,

strikes of electric current coursing through veins into synapses lightening quick,

the wind picking up as it's expelled from heaving chests,

thunderous chants used to thank the gods of the apocalypse,

praise for relieving the drought.

 

He's your shelter just as much as he's your raging storm,

but you're his lifeboat in a tumultuous sea.

And you think that maybe you've always been when he holds to you like he's drowned,

clinging to the one thing that he entrusts to get him back to the high ground when it's over,

when he says your name like cherubs on high,

exalting in you as you do in him.

 

You won't let him down and he won't let you go,

bound tight,

pulled taut,

until you snap like bowstrings,

fraying at the edges as you fall to pieces,

the flash of gunpowder leaving you choked in the smoke from the muzzle when the hammer hits home,

when every last drop is wrung from thinning clouds as the darkness starts to give way.

 

There's a calm before the storm,

but there's a peace that follows after.

Devastation leading the charge to renewal,

the grit of the past washed away,

wounds cleansed and left to scar,

trees diseased uprooted for new seedlings to flourish,

the sun peeking through to mop up the excess.

 

It's you and everything you are laid out before him as he puts you back together,

and you know he's the only one you'll ever trust to do it right.

It's him and everything he is,

and you know your pieces don't fit right now without the ones he gave you.

And they never will again.

 

Soon, clouds begin to clear as drenched curls land light upon your chest,

hearts syncing into rhythm,

breaths descending into drowsy depths.

You lay there holding fast to a love beyond reproach,

anchored by his weight while you keep him afloat,

and you're left to wonder how the fuck you ever braved a storm alone.


End file.
